At FPF we welcome piano technicians with a diverse set of skills and experiences. We’re scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs, as well as musicians. This diversity makes our team stronger and better able to help our clients.

Above and beyond performing the basic functions of tuning and servicing pianos, we aim to provide infinite value in each interaction, bringing our personality, kindness and creativity—essentially our best selves—to every interaction.

It’s our way to show our appreciation for the unique value we gain in meeting each new client and their piano.

On that note, we’d like to dedicate this post to highlighting what fascinating endeavors one of our technicians participates in outside of piano work. Jerome Ellis is a musician and performer steeped in the tradition of improvisation and he’s been performing at Lincoln Center recently to broaden the horizons of NYC city high school students.

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Though many of us in the piano industry, both young and old, love our off screen time, we can’t help but face it — software and the internet are more and more essential to keeping our industry alive. This isn’t some idea in the future. It’s here now, as in today. And it leaves many veterans in the piano industry wondering, “How, in this new landscape, can I get the most out of the business that I’ve built?”

Even worse there’s “How can I get my business back on it’s feet?”

I’m going to give you 3 simple things to consider implementing. Once you have them up and running, the only reason you’ll look at a screen is to review the increases in your bank balance.

When I moved my piano tuning business from Chicago to New York in 2009 I was extremely surprised to find out that within a couple of months my little website was making it to the top of google searches. A humble new guy in a big city full of great world class technicians that were already established—how did that happen?

I had no idea why but I certainly was grateful. It kept me from starving (to be the benefactor of such a wonderful windfall at a tough, transitional time in my life and career). To be clear, I had to really hustle to be successful, but this was key.

Even though I really needed this advantage to survive I still felt a little guilty when other piano technicians asked me how I did it. They might have been incredulous if I didn’t share exactly how that worked, even though I really was not sure.

I still don’t know everything works but I think that by now I’ve figured out a few things that helped make that happen. This post addresses just one. All on its own (even if I had no site at all) it was doing probably 30% of the customer recruitment work for me. Its something that’s really simple too. In this post I’m sharing this basic thing that takes 5 minutes to get started and can really improve the online exposure of a small business.

As a piano tuner, getting to the top of google searches can seem like a mysterious magical trick. There are lots of daunting ideas that one might come up with. “I need a website” would be the first thought! You’d be surprised to find out you don’t absolutely NEED a website to get to the top of google searches, right? And there’s other really simple things you can do that I don’t have space and time to adress here.

You’ll also hear about other, seemingly necessary ideas involved in making this happen that are daunting to have to either learn about or pay for (ack!). You know, like SEO, key words, reciprocal links, etc. Interestingly enough, Google (All hail our supreme leader, Google) has made the process of getting found as a service provider (especially in a unique niche like that of piano tuning) much easier than you’d think.

I feel really indebted to all the generous technicians that helped me along my path to understanding the piano better and making a career of from it.

That’s why I made this video. I’d like any other technicians out there who need a way to increase their number of bookings and get more exposure to be able to understand the things that I have learned.

If you are in a remote area where there aren’t many tuners then you are doing your customers a disservice if they can’t find you on Google. And Google places registration alone could help you go from 5 tunings per week to 7 or 10.

Your new piano tuning customers will be happy with you and with Google when you finally show up at the top of every google search for “piano tuning” in your area.

As a whole, we technicians are a super generous bunch and I’m proud to be part of a community like that! I hope this video is helpful for you as a piano technician.

If you found this information useful and you are interested in more like it I’m happy to share. I can send you a little checklist I put together of other things you can do to boost your business if you want. When you enter your email below I’ll get a notice to remind me to send that along.

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This in-depth lecture presentation will help you gain a significant edge as a piano tuner and technician. Do you understand what an inharmonicity curve is? How do inharmonicity curves interact across the range of the piano? What does a 6:3, 4:2, or 2:1 octave “look” like when represented graphically? How do coincident partials look when represented graphically? Can you calculate the fundamental frequencies of adjacent notes? Do you understand how to convert between Hertz and cents in different ranges of the piano? Put all this knowledge in your toolkit and you’ll begin to have a much deeper understanding of piano tuning by ear. Learn these concepts and meditate on them as your next ear tuning unfolds. Whether you’re a beginner piano technician and want to ensure you are understanding the foundational theory behind ear tuning or a more experienced technician who wants to update your understanding, this video will be invaluable.

The instructor: Eathan Janney BM, PhD, RPT has 17 years of experience in the Piano Industry, which includes work as a technician in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., New Orleans, New Jersey, Peru and Hong Kong. He established the acclaimed Floating Piano Factory Apprenticeship Program in 2011 and has been teaching piano technology and helping the advancement of the field ever since. His PhD is in Biology with a concentration on Neuroscience, where his research focused heavily on the analysis of birdsong from a musical perspective. Thus, he has a deep understanding of signal processing and statistical analysis, a wonderful complement to his skills and experience in piano technology. He also has taught through CUNY (the City University of New York) at the City College of New York and Hunter College on topics ranging from biology to statistics. His undergraduate degree is in Jazz Piano Performance from Mason Gross School of the Arts which is the conservatory of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

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For a while, I wasn’t sure if I should go to Hong Kong. There was a lot to figure out. Would the timing work with my stop in New York? Was it worth the expense? What would be the best use of my time there when I arrived?

However, I did want to meet our two new technicians: Macho and Neway. They contacted me over a year ago to get involved with FPF, and we’ve been working to get them set up in Hong Kong ever since. I figured that by going to visit, I could better determine what our approach should be for this area.

On top of that, I’ve been trying to spend more personal time with my co-workers, and to get to know people better in general. Macho’s family was kind enough to offer me a place to stay, so I decided to go for it. I booked a flight from NYC to Hong Kong.

This is part one of what I hope to be a ten-part series guiding us through the book Pianos Inside Out by Mario Igrec.

Many piano technicians will consult with this book on a regular basis as needed, but sometimes its worthwhile to work through a text searching for gaps in our knowledge, undiscovered pearls of wisdom, and just to gain a more solid foundation in the craft of piano work.

This endeavor is meant to aid other piano techs and spark interaction and camaraderie. Any feedback you, as a reader, have regarding the presentation or format is much appreciated.

Okay! Moving on…

It’s time to start reading! The first section we’ll address is pages 1-50. That’s Chapter 1 on History and half of Chapter 2 about Design and Construction. The goal is to read through this in one week. This section covers the beginnings of what is considered the modern piano and some variations along the way. Then we move on to the composition of the piano, including its supportive structure, strings, bridges, and soundboard. The remaining structure is covered in the next section.

Here is a brief outline of the content of these pages, followed by some study questions. You can use this to prime your brain before your reading or for reviewing after you read. Keep in mind that many of the study questions can only be answered by reading the text of the actual book. So dive in.

The answers are in the book, and it’s more motivating to find them yourself if you don’t have them readily available so they are not posted here. However, you can sign up to keep abreast of this project and I’ll forward a document with the answers so we can compare notes.

Chapter 1: History

The piano was born in 1700 when Bartolomeo Cristofori, of Florence Italy, installed the first piano action into a harpsichord. The purpose was to alter the instrument so that strings could be struck by hammers instead of plucked by plectra. This allowed for variability in volume depending upon how hard keys were pressed.

Around the same time a similar instrument was becoming popular called the pantaloon. It was a dulcimer modifies such that, again, strings could be struck by hammers, this time instead of by the traditional dulicimer mallets. The instrument was named after a famous dulcimer player called Hebenstreit Pantalon.

Throughout the remainder of the 18th century, pianos grew in popularity, spread to various european locales, and were modified in several ways. The 1700’s saw the introduction of pedals, for example. Vertical pianos evolved from the clavicytherum, a type of upright harpsichord. In the latter half of the 18th century, the industrial revolution began to influence piano design and construction.

As the century turned even more advances in technology and a rising middle class meant that more pianos could be constructed and sold. Pianos began to be built in the United States. Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all had the chance to interact with the developing instrument and as the 1800s progressed an increasing number of compositions were intended for the piano.

Through the first half of the 19th century the piano gradually became bigger and louder instrument. The range of the keyboard increased from 5 octaves to 6.5. The cast metal plate was introduced. The double escapement action was invented by Sebastien erard. The overall tension held within the instrument increased. Inventions and patents to improve the piano proceeded at a rapid pace. Agraffes, cross-stringing, the capo tasto bar, felt hammers, and technologies to aid in manufacturing things like hammers were all patented, introduced in this time.

In the second half of the 19th century Steinway began in America and then after success there began manufacturing in Europe as well. Also at this time the square piano became popular but quickly lost favor because of many design flaws. As the 20th century approached, pianos became quite a popular instrument, and very profitable to manufacture and sell. Popularity continued to grow in the early 20th century. However, as the phonograph, radio, motion picture, and television industries invaded, and because of the great depression and WWII, the piano lost some favor. Since WWII piano popularity has had swells within various markets independently, such as in Eastern Europe, Japan, Korea and China.

Chapter 2: Construction and Design

According to Mario Igrec “piano design history has been a struggle to more efficiency convert a finger’s force into acoustic energy.” This can be achieved through a number of manners: increased string tension, soundboard tension/compression, and mass of hammers.

The rim of the piano consists of an outer and inner part. The outer rim is essentially a part of the case of the grand piano. There are two manners of constructing the rim. Composite rims are constructed from small segments and continuous laminated rims consist of a series of laminated boards that are all at once bent around a mold to form the shape of the pianos case. The rim of a grand piano supports its structure just as vertical beams in an upright do the same. A dense and rigid rim or frame maximizes volume and sustain.

Beams of spruce join a rim/frame with the belly rail. The belly rail provides a rail of support to which the soundboard can be glued.

The pin block consists of laminated sheets of wood with grans sequentially angled at 45-90 degree differences to one another. The pinblock must grip tuning pins firmly and transmit the tension of the strings to the plate and rim. A pin block is generally 1.25” to 1.5” thick [31 to 38mm]. In a grand piano a pinblock can be installed in 3 ways. In order of increasing quality you can have a floating, regular fit or full fit pinblock. Each style adds an extra point of structural attachment to the plate, rim, and stretcher respectively.

The strings, bridges, soundboard and plate generate sound. Each of around 230 strings – holds around 160-200 lbs of tension. Strings are typically made of high-carbon steel and sometimes nickel plated. Bass strings have a copper winding, to allow for increased mass (slower oscillation) without unmanageably thick strings.

The bridge lies compressed between the strings and the soundboard and transmits vibrations between the two. A stiff soundboard reflects some energy back the strings, which allows them to sustain longer. The bridge has often has a separate root and cap portion. A separate cap can be shaped and notched easily and replaced if it cracks. Bass strings are longer and extend toward the edge of the soundboard where it is more rigid. In order to increase flexibly in the area where the bass resigntes a shelf sometimes used to allow the longer strings to contact a more central (flexible) part of the soundboard.

Bridge pins are made of steel, often with brass plating to reduce friction. Notches in the bridge allow strings to vibrate freely where they contact the bridge pins. If notching does not create the same termination point at the bridge pin and the bridge notch this can lead to false beats. Sometimes termination points on the bridge are engineered to create unequal speaking lengths. Unequal lengths cause slight interferences among the sound waves from each string. This means the strings resonate with one another less effectively, transfer energy to the soundboard less effectively, and therefore can have a longer sustain.

The soundboard is sometimes mischaracterized as an amplifier, when in fact it is only a transducer of vibrations from the strings into the air. A good soundboard will effectively impede the vibrations of the strings, allowing for a short attack sound and a long sustain. A well designed soundboard’s resonances will be carefully tweaked so that the tone quality from the various strings in the piano is consistent. Spruce soundboard material is rigid along its gran but less so across the grain, therefore soundboard ribs are installed across the grain to create an isotropic diaphragm, in which rigidity is relatively equal in all directions.

The next post continues to work through chapter 2 on design and construction.

Study Questions:

(Many can only be answered by reading the text of the actual book. So dive in.)

pages 1-10:

1. What year marks the invention of the piano?
2. Who is credited with inventing it?
3. In which century were JS Bach, Haydn, and Mozart prominent? Which of them had the opportunity to use the invention of the piano?
4. There was an instrument called the Pantalon. Where does the name come from?
5. In what country was the piano invented?

pages 11-20:

6. Around what time did pianos start to be made in America?
7. What major development in piano construction allowed for louder pianos?
8. Around what year was it developed?
9. Who invented the agraffe in 1808? What other major invention is he responsible for?
10. Piano design history has been a struggle to do what?

pages 20-30:

11. According to Mario Igrec, what are the two most valued characteristics in pianos today?
12. The quality of these two characteristics is proportional to what?
13. True or False. The outer rim can be added after pin block, soundboard, bridges and strings.
14. What type of wood might you find in the dense rim of an expensive pianos?
15. What re the two main types of rims? How are they constructed

pages 30-40:

16. How thick is the typical pin block?
17. When bridges transmit vibrations from the strings to the soundboard, but also reflect much of that energy back to the strings, what tonal outcome does this create?
18. What is described by the following statements? Easier to shape and notch than a vertically laminated root. Can be replaced if it cracks. Can be used to modulate the stiffness of the bridge.
19. Which piano maker patented the continuous curved bridge?
20. What is described by the following statement? There are three types: regular floating, fit, full fit. Which is best?

pages 40-50:

21. What is the purpose of a bass bridge shelf or apron?
22. What is the purpose of having unequal speaking lengths in unisons?
23. How will a lower cutoff frequency in its soundboard improve a piano’s sound?
24. Which is a more appropriate term for the soundboard? Transducer or amplifier? Why?
25. What is a typical number of degrees for downbearing?

If you don’t have the book, GET IT! But if you’d like to preview further then here are PDF excerpts from various chapters of this book, as posted on the book’s web page: